[gregstoll]

My respect for how hard it is to convert from .pdf to HTML just went waaaay up. Scribd must have really thought displaying in HTML5 was worth a lot of trouble if they went to all this effort to be precise!

[points]

Whilst technically impressive, it reminds me of the 'NASA spent millions developing a pen that writes in space vs Russians used a pencil'.

Googles competing pdf reader just renders pdfs into images which also have selectable text.

[prs]

As for the NASA story, you might find this link interesting: http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

[panacea]

Their entire business model involves displaying PDF content on the internet.

The fact they have to jump through hoops to achieve that, while potentially impressive, is a function of their entire RFB (reason for being... I just coined the term).

[panacea]

"Raison d'être" actually. Damn you France ;]